Alter-EU has published a rather useful report about the “expert groups” who advise the European Commission on policy and law.

It reveals a growing problem: These groups are increasing in number (there are now about 1200), but their membership is often kept a secret and their discussions are equally confidential.

The result is that in many cases EU policy is strongly influenced by committees dominated by interest groups.

The groups are committees composed of national representatives, academics, trade associations and business people as well as Commission officials and MEPs.

Alter-EU chose a sample of groups to investigate, and requested information from the Commission. In 34% of cases, the Commission simply didn’t reply to the request. In others, they took up to 80 days to provide details. In half of the cases where the Commission did provide information, it was only partial.

Many groups are controlled by producers - in other words, the expertise they provide is likely to recommend law and policy favouring industry.

The report is well worth a read if you want to begin to understand the opaque way in which the EU goes about creating its laws. It’s available here.

This will probably only interest EU wonks, but it’s actually quite an important step forward.

The working groups that advise the Commission and Parliament on drafting EU law have been anonymous until now. They’re usually industry experts, business executives and “cvil society actors”, but it’s impossible to know who they are and what and when they’re meeting or giving advice. This is an incredibly bad situation, as it allows law to be captured by special interests.

The situation is highly untransparent, and offers great scope for corruption. So knowing who the groups are will give us some purchase in terms of understanding who’s influencing the EU.

“The names of thousands of industry executives advising the European Commission on key policies will be published within months, the Brussels executive has pledged.

The business people, along with academics, government officials and non-government organisations, form “expert groups”. They sit in ad hoc committees of advisers that have mushroomed in recent years as the Commission has moved into complex areas such as climate change and biotechnology.”

But this is only a start. We’ll need to know when they meet, what they talk about, and wherever possible see minutes of meetings.

The EU Parliament would like you to think that Brussels works a bit like Westminster, with MEPs vigorously debating proposals they’ve come up with before sending them off to be signed by the Queen.

Nothing could be further from the truth. EU Law is developed in a murky, untransparent way, and involves a great many committees composed of members keen to defend their own interests.

So this article by Simon Clark is particularly interesting, because it lifts the lid on how a measure gets discussed in its very early stages.

I sensed, as soon as I entered the room and introduced myself (“Hello, I’m Simon Clark – from the smokers’ lobby group Forest”), that there could be trouble. The guy from Pfizer (yes, the pharmaceutical company) didn’t look pleased, and there were mutterings from some of the other delegates. (There were around 20 in all.)

No surprise then, when, as soon as the meeting began, and we had all formally identified ourselves, two or three hands shot up. As I suspected, some of my fellow delegates were none too happy that a representative of Forest was in the room. If I didn’t leave, said one, she would. Others nodded their heads in agreement.

The rest is here.

Hat-tip Biased BBC.